A Smile Is A Form Of Love

Sister Joan Schafhauser of Kingston, Ontario, celebrated a birthday during the teacher conference in Philadelphia. While a slice of cheesecake was being decorated with candles, my mission was to prevent her from witnessing this forthcoming surprise. Blocking the doorway of the dining room, I asked “Joan, tell me about your experiences teaching T’ai Chi Chih.”

She told me about teaching in several places, but the most interesting was her experience at a men’s prison. The prison provided days of training about laws and guidelines, both for her safety and to prevent problems. She was told not to ask the prisoners about their offenses or counsel them in any way. And she was instructed not to wear clothes that might show cleavage (of course she never would) or t-shirts with logos on the chest that might draw the men’s attention. She also learned not to wear low-cut ballet-type shoes without socks that might reveal toe cleavage (something she’d never heard of).

While teaching at the prison, Joan didn’t focus on the students doing the movements perfectly, she just made sure to smile at each of them. One student said he only came to class because she smiled at him. She realized that probably no one else in the prison ever smiled at the prisoners. But maybe their grandmother had. So she thought of herself as the prisoners’ grandmother and smiled at them. She said, “I know that’s not TCC.” I pointed to the banner at the front of the room that read “TCC is a service to humanity, a form of love.”